M. Compte thought that drunkenness is promoted by an ignorance of its results: and there is an element of truth here. How many vainly look to it to drive away remorse, care, and sorrow; thus, Horace (i. 18):—
Neque
Mordaces aliter diffugiunt sollicitudines.
Liebig, in his Letters on Chemistry, says that it is the effect of poverty, deficient nutriment requiring the compensation of alcohol. Horace seems to have combined these notions:—
Ebrietas quid non designat? operta recludit
Spes jubet esse ratas: in prælia trudit inertem,
Sollicitis animis onus eximit: addocet artes.
Fæcundi calices, quem non fecere disertum?
Contracta quem non in paupertate solutum.
And to much the same effect, Ovid:—
Vina parant animos, faciuntque coloribus aptos.
Cura fugit, multo diluiturque mero.
Tunc veniunt risus, tunc pauper cornua sumit,
Tunc dolor et curæ, rugaque frontis abit.
Tunc aperit mentes, ævo rarissima nostro
Simplicitas, artes excutiente Deo.
Others assign as the cause depressing influences. Thus in the Transactions of Association for Promoting Social Science, London, 1859, pp. 86-89, ‘it is said that crime is caused by drunkenness, and that (drunkenness) by foul air and the depressing influence of bad localities, bringing with it a fierce desire for stimulants, and by bad and deficient water.’
The poet Burns contributed not a little to the popular notion that under such circumstances strong drink (particularly the ‘mountain dew’) was the panacea:—
Food fills the wame, an’ keeps us livin’:
Tho’ life’s a gift no worth receivin’,
When heavy dragg’d wi’ pine and grievin’;
But oil’d by thee,
The wheels o’ life gae down-hill scrievin’,
Wi’ rattlin glee.
Thou clears the head o’ doited lear;
Thou cheers the heart o’ drooping care;
Thou strings the nerves o’ labour sair,
At’s weary toil;
Thou even brightens dark despair
Wi’ gloomy smile.